Mathematicians of Edinburgh

When first planning these mathematical travels I had only planned a couple of days for Edinburgh.  My interest was in John Napier, a very interesting character who also invented logarithms and is responsible for popularizing the use of the decimal point.  After seeing Merchiston Tower, which is all that remains of his castle in Edinburgh and is now part of Edinburgh Napier University, and after touring Lauriston Castle, home of his brother, I was going to be on my way to my myriad of mathematical stops in England.

However, as I began to look into Edinburgh I became aware of more and more mathematicians and mathematical physicists of note who were associated in some way with Edinburgh.  Along with Napier, these are:

Girolamo Cardano
Colin MacLaurin
John Playfair
Mary Somerville
William Thompson, Lord Kelvin
James Clerk Maxwell
Peter Guthrie Tait

and, currently, Sir Michael Atiyah, geometer and Fields Medal winner.

Clearly my Edinburgh sojourn needed to be extended, and I ended up reserving six days in Edinburgh rather than the two I had initially planned.  Even at that I need to focus on two or three and just touch on the others.  In this post I am sharing landmarks that all of these mathematicians would have been familiar with - that's not to say that some changes may not have been made to certain places such as Edinburgh Castle and Holyrood Palace between the time of Napier (b. 1550) and Atiyah (b. 1929).

EDINBURGH CASTLE

HOLYROOD PALACE

HOLYROOD PARK AND ARTHUR'S SEAT

St. Anthony's Chapel ruins in Holyrood Park - partway up to Arthur's Seat

Overlooking the city from near the top of Arthur's Seat

ST. GILES' CATHEDRAL

EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY

Main Campus

"New College" Campus - now a divinity school

"New College" Campus

"New College" Campus (with John Knox)

THE FIRTH OF FORTH

I haven't gotten close yet, but here it is from a bit below Arthur's Seat

CALTON HILL (with or without observatory and various monuments)

Observatory and Playfair Monument

Edinburgh - the Athens of the North

Viewing across Old Calton Burial Ground

Top left - looking over Holyrood Palace

Post Script - this idea of common landscapes was confirmed today (March 31, 2016) when I visited the National Portrait Gallery and saw the piece below from 1820 showing Calton Hill and Arthur's Seat behind it.